102-Year-Old German Woman Gets PhD After Being Turned Away by Nazis 77 Years Ago

Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport was turned away because her mother was Jewish.

ByABC News
June 1, 2015, 12:49 PM
German paediatrician Ingeborg Rapoport, 97, speaks during an interview in her house in Berlin July 3, 2009.
German paediatrician Ingeborg Rapoport, 97, speaks during an interview in her house in Berlin July 3, 2009.
Thomas Peter/Reuters

— -- A 102-year-old woman from Germany will belatedly get her Ph.D. after being turned away 77 years ago by university officials for being Jewish.

Pediatrician Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport will have a ceremony in her honor at the University of Hamburg on June 9, a university spokeswoman told ABC News.

Rapoport had finished her thesis on diphtheria between 1937 and 1938 but was not given a diploma because her mother was Jewish, according to the national German news agency DPA.

Rapoport migrated to the United States for several years and now lives in Berlin.